A metaphysical argument against objectivism

[caroljane]

So how are you supporting yourself?

What about your couture? There are no legal or bureaucratic restrictions that I know of to offering your dress designs for sale.

[MrBenjamatic]

So how are you supporting yourself?

What about your couture? There are no legal or bureaucratic restrictions that I know of to offering your dress designs for sale.

I'm working at a factory for 40 hours a week night shifts. I have, before robbery, a little more than enough to move from the despots house and into my own apartment and support myself. After robbery, I don't have enough and I refuse to be on welfare so I'll have to publish the book upon correcting every philosophical error I made after reading and understanding Rands books. Fashion might be regulated, I haven't checked yet. It didn't seem important. Half of my winter-wear is illegal as a lot of it consists of exotic furs such as Siberian tiger and leopard. I have so many business endeavors, I'm sure at least one is not regulated as much as architecture. I discovered not too long ago that I'm forced to receive a degree and license for interior design and landscape architecture: I'll be wiping those maggots out of my way too. Its baffling to think that I'd have to go to college for about 15 years to do only my architecture. For government permission to pursue all of my endeavors which I've been long planning, I'd have to spend three fifths of my life in colleges for the requisite involuntary servitude. I hope I'll find a field not so regulated, I very much want to have my own factory/foundry. I'd live in my office if my architecture was illegal and watch. My GOD that will be exalting!

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Rand said definitions are concepts.

The hell she did.

Here is the very first sentence from Chapter 5, "Definitions," from Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology:

A definition is a statement that identifies the nature of the units subsumed under a concept.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

The umbilical cord provides the baby, before birth, with oxygen and nourishment, without which the unborn baby would die. The definition of a parasite is: an organism that grows, feeds, and is sheltered on or in a different organism while contributing nothing to the survival of the host. These are irrefutable facts, and the facts upon which I've based my conviction that an unborn baby is a parasite due to the existence and purpose of the umbilical cord. I don't compare it to original sin as original sin claims that you are born evil and have to redeem yourself. The parasitical nature of unborn babies is not evil as there is no other way (other than cloning, perhaps) by which a human can be born. And I do not hold that the natural and requisite parasitical behavior of an unborn baby has to be, by that baby, redeemed. If its not evil, how and why is redemption necessary?

The baby does not have the right to be a parasite because the mothers body and no one else's, which the baby needs to survive, is the mothers body and no one else's. Once the baby is born, I would call it a human. I might have said otherwise earlier, but this is my final conclusion as humans don't chose to be immoral immediately upon being born. I remember from the John Galt speech Rand saying something like in order to be a human you must think, but you cannot choose be anything else. (Does anyone have the quote?). I think I took that the wrong way. I held that those who refuse to think are not humans but mere homo-sapiens, and I've corrected myself. Those who don't think try not to be humans, but they can't not be humans. It was a little error. Before I attributed rights to homo-sapiens and now I'll say individual human rights with full confidence.

Does anyone still hold I've reached a contradiction?

He who has the definitions wins the argument.

--Brant

[MrBenjamatic]

The umbilical cord provides the baby, before birth, with oxygen and nourishment, without which the unborn baby would die. The definition of a parasite is: an organism that grows, feeds, and is sheltered on or in a different organism while contributing nothing to the survival of the host. These are irrefutable facts, and the facts upon which I've based my conviction that an unborn baby is a parasite due to the existence and purpose of the umbilical cord. I don't compare it to original sin as original sin claims that you are born evil and have to redeem yourself. The parasitical nature of unborn babies is not evil as there is no other way (other than cloning, perhaps) by which a human can be born. And I do not hold that the natural and requisite parasitical behavior of an unborn baby has to be, by that baby, redeemed. If its not evil, how and why is redemption necessary?

The baby does not have the right to be a parasite because the mothers body and no one else's, which the baby needs to survive, is the mothers body and no one else's. Once the baby is born, I would call it a human. I might have said otherwise earlier, but this is my final conclusion as humans don't chose to be immoral immediately upon being born. I remember from the John Galt speech Rand saying something like in order to be a human you must think, but you cannot choose be anything else. (Does anyone have the quote?). I think I took that the wrong way. I held that those who refuse to think are not humans but mere homo-sapiens, and I've corrected myself. Those who don't think try not to be humans, but they can't not be humans. It was a little error. Before I attributed rights to homo-sapiens and now I'll say individual human rights with full confidence.

Does anyone still hold I've reached a contradiction?

You keep self-referencing what you've said many times and reference and counter nothing anybody has objected to in your presentations.

--Brant

I countered the argument that a baby is not a parasite. I clarified which specific definition of parasite I applied to a baby as others used definitions of parasite other than the one I used to describe a baby. Which specific objections have I not countered?

Brant: You say he who has definitions wins the argument. I agree with you. Have I misused a definition? I corrected myself and now hold that an unborn baby is a human. I haven't changed my mind that the baby, even though a human, has the right to be a parasite.

Michael,

I obviously misread what she said so easily due to not understanding concepts yet.

Do you know of that Objectivist book written on induction and deduction? It was written, I think, by a man at the Falling Apple Institute. I'm also about to read Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. I have only read that which is from that book and posted on Ayn Rand Lexicon. I know it will be worth my while

Also, I thought I'd tell you that you misunderstood which definition of parasite I used to describe a baby: A plant or an animal organism that lives in or on another and takes its nourishment from that other organism. I read online that "Babies receive nourishment and oxygen in the womb through the placenta, which is connected to the inner wall of the mother's uterus. The placenta is connected to your baby by the umbilical cord through an opening in the baby's abdomen". I don't know much about anatomy but, to the extent of my knowledge, without the umbilical cord an unborn baby could not survive. In your argument against my conviction that a baby is a parasite you held a parasite as being harmful to the health of the host so we both agree that a baby is not that type of parasite as I recognize that a fetus does not harm the health of the mother even though she bores pain. (I'm not being sarcastic).

And, for the sake of being just, I will say that I think you're very smart. I enjoy your posts.

[Brant Gaede]

The umbilical cord provides the baby, before birth, with oxygen and nourishment, without which the unborn baby would die. The definition of a parasite is: an organism that grows, feeds, and is sheltered on or in a different organism while contributing nothing to the survival of the host. These are irrefutable facts, and the facts upon which I've based my conviction that an unborn baby is a parasite due to the existence and purpose of the umbilical cord. I don't compare it to original sin as original sin claims that you are born evil and have to redeem yourself. The parasitical nature of unborn babies is not evil as there is no other way (other than cloning, perhaps) by which a human can be born. And I do not hold that the natural and requisite parasitical behavior of an unborn baby has to be, by that baby, redeemed. If its not evil, how and why is redemption necessary?

The baby does not have the right to be a parasite because the mothers body and no one else's, which the baby needs to survive, is the mothers body and no one else's. Once the baby is born, I would call it a human. I might have said otherwise earlier, but this is my final conclusion as humans don't chose to be immoral immediately upon being born. I remember from the John Galt speech Rand saying something like in order to be a human you must think, but you cannot choose be anything else. (Does anyone have the quote?). I think I took that the wrong way. I held that those who refuse to think are not humans but mere homo-sapiens, and I've corrected myself. Those who don't think try not to be humans, but they can't not be humans. It was a little error. Before I attributed rights to homo-sapiens and now I'll say individual human rights with full confidence.

Does anyone still hold I've reached a contradiction?

You keep self-referencing what you've said many times and reference and counter nothing anybody has objected to in your presentations.

--Brant

I countered the argument that a baby is not a parasite. I clarified which specific definition of parasite I applied to a baby as others used definitions of parasite other than the one I used to describe a baby. Which specific objections have I not countered?

Michael,

I obviously misread what she said so easily due to not understanding concepts yet.

Do you know of that Objectivist book written on induction and deduction? It was written, I think, by a man at the Falling Apple Institute. I'm also about to read Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. I have only read that which is from that book and posted on Ayn Rand Lexicon. I know it will be worth my while

I had deleted what you quoted and put in something else. Our posts crossed. I'm too sure of your ability to counter anything and don't want to talk to a wall.

--Brant

[caroljane]

So how are you supporting yourself?

What about your couture? There are no legal or bureaucratic restrictions that I know of to offering your dress designs for sale.

I'm working at a factory for 40 hours a week night shifts. I have, before robbery, a little more than enough to move from the despots house and into my own apartment and support myself. After robbery, I don't have enough and I refuse to be on welfare so I'll have to publish the book upon correcting every philosophical error I made after reading and understanding Rands books. Fashion might be regulated, I haven't checked yet. It didn't seem important.

What you present as a major passion in your life didn't seem important? Any couturier of ability can create clothes in any fabric, just choose some legal ones, and offer them for sale. I can't imagine such an enterprise is regulated (it isn't here, in Socialist Canada).

[MrBenjamatic]

The umbilical cord provides the baby, before birth, with oxygen and nourishment, without which the unborn baby would die. The definition of a parasite is: an organism that grows, feeds, and is sheltered on or in a different organism while contributing nothing to the survival of the host. These are irrefutable facts, and the facts upon which I've based my conviction that an unborn baby is a parasite due to the existence and purpose of the umbilical cord. I don't compare it to original sin as original sin claims that you are born evil and have to redeem yourself. The parasitical nature of unborn babies is not evil as there is no other way (other than cloning, perhaps) by which a human can be born. And I do not hold that the natural and requisite parasitical behavior of an unborn baby has to be, by that baby, redeemed. If its not evil, how and why is redemption necessary?

The baby does not have the right to be a parasite because the mothers body and no one else's, which the baby needs to survive, is the mothers body and no one else's. I HOLD THAT BORN AND UNBORN HUMANS ARE HUMANS. A THING IS ITSELF!

Does anyone still hold I've reached a contradiction?

Above, I've corrected the mistakes in my original post.

[MrBenjamatic]

So how are you supporting yourself?

What about your couture? There are no legal or bureaucratic restrictions that I know of to offering your dress designs for sale.

I'm working at a factory for 40 hours a week night shifts. I have, before robbery, a little more than enough to move from the despots house and into my own apartment and support myself. After robbery, I don't have enough and I refuse to be on welfare so I'll have to publish the book upon correcting every philosophical error I made after reading and understanding Rands books. Fashion might be regulated, I haven't checked yet. It didn't seem important.

What you present as a major passion in your life didn't seem important? Any couturier of ability can create clothes in any fabric, just choose some legal ones, and offer them for sale. I can't imagine such an enterprise is regulated (it isn't here, in Socialist Canada).

Nope, only the regulations are what I considered unimportant. Haha, my couture is utterly important. The last great creator in that field is Coco Chanel and Charles Frederick Worth before her who invented haute couture. You'd be surprised what they regulate, flower shop owners for instance have to have their arrangements approved by the government. Watch John Stossel's illegal everything.

[caroljane]

So how are you supporting yourself?

What about your couture? There are no legal or bureaucratic restrictions that I know of to offering your dress designs for sale.

I'm working at a factory for 40 hours a week night shifts. I have, before robbery, a little more than enough to move from the despots house and into my own apartment and support myself. After robbery, I don't have enough and I refuse to be on welfare so I'll have to publish the book upon correcting every philosophical error I made after reading and understanding Rands books. Fashion might be regulated, I haven't checked yet. It didn't seem important.

What you present as a major passion in your life didn't seem important? Any couturier of ability can create clothes in any fabric, just choose some legal ones, and offer them for sale. I can't imagine such an enterprise is regulated (it isn't here, in Socialist Canada).

Nope, only the regulations are what I considered unimportant. Haha, my couture is utterly important. The last great creator in that field is Coco Chanel and Charles Frederick Worth before her who invented haute couture. You'd be surprised what they regulate, flower shop owners for instance have to have their arrangements approved by the government. Watch John Stossel's illegal everything.

well, when you get up and running in their tradition, do us all a favour and bring back sleeves on wedding dresses.

So many beefy brides have to bare their bobbling biceps on their Big Day, it's cruel and unusual.

[MrBenjamatic]

Running in their tradition? But I'm not traditional at all. I don't think I would have a brides arm be bare, sleeves or opera gloves would do. For anyone large, I'd give a sculptured wrap (not flat but architectural).

[caroljane]

Running in their tradition? But I'm not traditional at all. I don't think I would have a brides arm be bare, sleeves or opera gloves would do. For anyone large, I'd give a sculptured wrap (not flat but architectural).

Running in their tradition? But I'm not traditional at all. I don't think I would have a brides arm be bare, sleeves or opera gloves would do. For anyone large, I'd give a sculptured wrap (not flat but architectural).

Long gloves were Georgian, and very attractive I think. Your ideas sound good, sincerely.

[MrBenjamatic]

Thank you

[Xray]

The specific definition of parasite I relate to an unborn baby is: An organism that grows, feeds, and is sheltered on or in a different organism while contributing nothing to the survival of its host. I have not said that a baby harms the health of the mother or that a baby human, once born, is a parasite.

For the record, I do take facts of reality to form concepts (as opposed to deducing reality from concepts).

What do you make of the fact of reality that the biological purpose of the female organism in its childbearing years clearly is to produce offspring?

Its biological purpose is therefore to produce that which is considered as the highest value in Objectivism: man's life.

In calling the unborn a parasite, you therefore get a contradiction. If you want to argue within the sphere of Objectivism, keep in mind one of its fundamental principles: contradictions do not exist. So If you encounter a contradiction in an argumentation, it indicates one or more false premises on which the argument is based.

In order to make headway, you have to find out the false premise(s) and correct them ("Check your premises").

The false premise here lies in calling an unborn a "parasite". It is a misunderstanding of the term parasite: for an unborn is not like e. g. a roundworm living in the human intestine and doing damage there. The human body has the biological 'purpose' to produce life, but it does not have the biological 'purpose' to host roundworms and other parasites,

[BaalChatzaf]

The false premise here lies in calling an unborn a "parasite". It is a misunderstanding of the term parasite: for an unborn is not like e. g. a roundworm living in the human intestine and doing damage there. The human body has the biological 'purpose' to produce life, but it does not have the biological 'purpose' to host roundworms and other parasites,

In the purely physical world (and that includes the purely biological) there are no purposes. There are events and processes.

We abuse the language sometimes. We say the heart is -for- pumping blood. The fact is the heart pumps blood (it so happens that way)

As long as we do not let our abuse of the language mislead us, then no harm is done.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

The false premise here lies in calling an unborn a "parasite". It is a misunderstanding of the term parasite: for an unborn is not like e. g. a roundworm living in the human intestine and doing damage there. The human body has the biological 'purpose' to produce life, but it does not have the biological 'purpose' to host roundworms and other parasites,

In the purely physical world (and that includes the purely biological) there are no purposes. There are events and processes.

We abuse the language sometimes. We say the heart is -for- pumping blood. The fact is the heart pumps blood (it so happens that way)

As long as we do not let our abuse of the language mislead us, then no harm is done.

The heart pumps blood and is for pumping blood. Two facts. Without both facts we can't think about this and come to conclusions about this life process--neither life nor process qua heart without the pretense of a "stolen concept." "Purpose" is not something--as a "right" is not something--you'll find inside a physical something. It's something you find inside a thought. It's advanced conceptual thinking of factual combinations and factual and conceptual combinations. You cannot get off the brain-ground without considering the organism as a biological whole, not only a heart doing something.

--Brant

[Paul Mawdsley]

The false premise here lies in calling an unborn a "parasite". It is a misunderstanding of the term parasite: for an unborn is not like e. g. a roundworm living in the human intestine and doing damage there. The human body has the biological 'purpose' to produce life, but it does not have the biological 'purpose' to host roundworms and other parasites,

In the purely physical world (and that includes the purely biological) there are no purposes. There are events and processes.

We abuse the language sometimes. We say the heart is -for- pumping blood. The fact is the heart pumps blood (it so happens that way)

As long as we do not let our abuse of the language mislead us, then no harm is done.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Ba'al Chatzaf

All life has the built-in drive to attain, maintain and increase integration. While science must see through a lens of observing and measuring from the outside, people can have perspectives beyond the confines of the scientific lens. We can say, more philosophically, that from inside an organism the drive to attain, maintain and increase integration can be conceived as a sense of inner purpose to actions. We can also consider the possibility that this drive is more fundamental than evolution itself, as the physical roots of this drive for attaining, maintaining and increasing integration can be found in plasma physics in the interaction between EM fields and ions. If we include this in our thinking, we must inject another force into the shaping of our evolutionary history, beyond random mutation and natural selection. The drive to survive and the drive to procreate can both be viewed as emerging from this drive to attain, maintain and increase integration operating within a context of random mutation and natural selection.

Bob, I am not using purpose here in the sense of conscious goal directedness but in the sense that an organism will be attracted to do more of what works and less of what doesn't from a principle built within its physical nature that sets an internal goal for the organisms actions.

The "purely physical world" is not just the world as seen through the lens of science. I believe in a purely physical universe but, viewed from within one of those purely physical organisms I call me, I see and experience things that science has no way to observe and measure from the outside. One such thing is a sense of purpose (as in an outward conscious goal directedness) and another is a sense that I am built around the principle of attaining , maintaining and increasing the integrity of the organism (as in an inward unconscious goal directedness that shapes behaviour). As I look around me I can see that all organisms share the latter.

Science is a lens with limits, not a means of producing an absolute authoritative perspective. Even though insights into relative perspectives (Einstein's guiding vision) are required to shape an accurate scientific account of the universe, science cannot include the relativity of individual perspectives within its lens. This is what is missing in scientific accounts of the universe. There is an inner purposefulness that science cannot observe which needs to be accounted for in scientific accounts.

Paul

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The more I study this, the more I come to the conclusion that science has provided mankind with great systems to fulfill the purposes of individuals.

But science has also provided some of the most useless intellectual garbage I have ever come across. It is called philosophy of science.

Dada art and this stuff are about the same.

Michael

[Xray]

In the purely physical world (and that includes the purely biological) there are no purposes. There are events and processes.

We abuse the language sometimes. We say the heart is -for- pumping blood. The fact is the heart pumps blood (it so happens that way)

As long as we do not let our abuse of the language mislead us, then no harm is done.

The heart pumps blood and is for pumping blood. Two facts.

<respectfully snipped>

You cannot get off the brain-ground without considering the organism as a biological whole, not only a heart doing something.

ITA. Purely reductionist thinking can end up in a cognitive blind alley.

[Xray]

But science has also provided some of the most useless intellectual garbage I have ever come across. It is called philosophy of science.

Why do you think philosophy of science is useless intellectual garbage?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Xray,

Not all, but a huge part.

It's the unsupportable sanctimoniousness when promoting boneheaded ideas that I can't stand. For example:

Nothing can ever be proven. It can only be disproven (falsified).

Consciousness is merely a user illusion.

"God created the universe" is patent nonsense. The universe actually appeared like a gigantic bang out of a state without space or time.

There are countless parallel universes.

I could go on and on.

Then, as gravy, some of those are sons of bitches who build weapons of mass destruction (biological, chemical and just plain old bombs among other goodies) for bloody dictators--while talking about the silliness and immorality of religion and "pseudoscience" (which often is pseudoscience, but often becomes a normal scientific category).

The majority (at least from what I have seen so far) prostitute themselves for funding and employment...

I suppose if you needed a philosophy for justifying spinelessness and bluffing, the philosophy of science is not garbage. But for understanding the nature of reality, it's worthless.

Michael

[anthony]

Yes: somewhere science moved from being the tool of truthful enquiry and furthering understanding, and

started becoming an 'end-in-itself.' Deification of Science. The perfect new home for once-

mystics who flock to worship it. I think some scientists have themselves to blame, too. Partly due to government sponsorship they have pandered to the populist phenomenon, chasing after money and status.

The nerds' revenge - science is now sexy.

[BaalChatzaf]

Yes: somewhere science moved from being the tool of truthful enquiry and furthering understanding, and

started becoming an 'end-in-itself.' Deification of Science. The perfect new home for once-

mystics who flock to worship it. I think some scientists have themselves to blame, too. Partly due to government sponsorship they have pandered to the populist phenomenon, chasing after money and status.

The nerds' revenge - science is now sexy.

The physical sciences have been in the past and are now empirical and fact based. The main change in the last century or so has been the increasing mathematical abstraction and sophistication in physics. Emily Noether and David Hilbert, both mathematicians made symmetry one of the central focuses of physical science. Noether's equivalence of symmetry with conservation laws is one of the most important para physical mathematical theorems every proved.

By the way Hilbert, a mathematician nearly beat Albert Einstein to the prize, a theory of gravitation, by using Langrangians and the least action principle.

Unfortunately, the mathematics first approach has a dark side. It has led some physicists to pursuing string theory and membrane theory into a cul de sac.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Xray]

Why do you think philosophy of science is useless intellectual garbage?

Xray,

Not all, but a huge part.

It's the unsupportable sanctimoniousness when promoting boneheaded ideas that I can't stand. For example:

Nothing can ever be proven. It can only be disproven (falsified).

Consciousness is merely a user illusion.

"God created the universe" is patent nonsense. The universe actually appeared like a gigantic bang out of a state without space or time.

There are countless parallel universes.

I could go on and on.

Michael,

But is philosophy of science the 'culprit' when people make assertions (as in the above examples) that are not supported by fact?

I'm currently reading a fascinating book "War of the Worldviews" where Deepak Chopra and physicist Leonard Mlodinow debate each other.

Where both are in agreement though is that "The real issue is knowledge and how you attain it." (Deepak Chopra)

But they substantially differ in their approach as to how knowledge is acquired.

Imo Chopra stands on weaker epistemological ground than Mlodinow.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

But is philosophy of science the 'culprit' when people make assertions (as in the above examples) that are not supported by fact?

Xray,

Yup.

The ones I listed are preached by famous scientists as part of their philosophy of science.

Michael